In author Justin Kreb’s own words,this is “a collection of small ideas about reflecting progressive values in your everyday life as well as a big idea about what liberal means and why we need to live liberally.” In mine: It’s a sanity-saving, moral guide to living in a contemporary society hell bent on crushing you with its consumer choices, paralyzing you with moral relativism, and making you want to go numb with all the pain and injustice. I know, I’m more dramatic than good ol’ Krebs, but we understand one another anyway.
538 Ways to Live, Work, and Play Like a Liberal begins with Justin claiming the “original L word”: LIBERAL. He thinks it is important to reclaim and shout from the rooftops. But what does it even mean?
Being liberal is not only a political philosophy–liberal is how you live your life and interact with neighbors, coworkers, and strangers on the street. It’s not just how you vote on Election Day, but how you vote with your wallet every day. It’s not only what you chant at a rally, but what you laugh at or rock out to on your iPod.
Here are just a dozen of my favorite of Justin’s recommendations:
- Just look around for the features that create shared space…literally the ‘common ground’ that can help turn strangers into neighbors and neighbors into friends.
- Visit your neighborhood parks.
- Create a play street.
- Share an internet connection and wi-fi router.
- Provide flex time.
- When looking for a movie to go to, ask yourself: Does it trade on love or violence?
- Find the local diner.
- When looking for a place of worship, ask yourself Does the congregation respect non-congregants?
- Advocate for food access.
- Be a conscious shareholder.
- Contribute to campaigns.
- Remember to translate for volunteers.
Super bonus: he quotes both Molly Ivins and Emma Goldman on the same page. You go Justin.
The book drops July 4th (of course). Don’t miss out. Justin is also running a Kickstarter campaign to raise money to help with his book tour which he’s calling the “Great American Roadtrip.” Justin explains it: “My goal is to visit 50 cities between now and the midterm election with the goal of talking about liberal values and convening and empowering local liberals. I’ll be keeping costs low but I do need to pay for bus tickets, gas and plane fare at times; for promotional copies of the book to give to my hosts and the occasional lodging when I’m in between chapters.”
5 Comments
There are literally liberals everywhere. In red states they are usually cloistered in cities where their votes are usually canceled out by conservatives in greater numbers. Their voices just simply get drowned out.
A Friend makes a point of attending Quaker meetings and churches which often feel isolated from the established centers of power and influence, believing that greater networking is what it will take to accomplish good things. I couldn’t agree more.
Uh, I’m pretty positive Emma would be freaking the hell out that her words were used for this liberal political reform project, considering her politics and life’s work. Case in point, another Emma quote:
“Anarchism repudiates any attempt of a group of men or of any individual to arrange life for others. Anarchism rests on faith in humanity and its potentialities, while all other social philosophies have no faith in humanity whatever. The other philosophies insist that man cannot govern himself and that he must be ruled over. Nowadays most people believe that the stronger the Government the greater the success of society will be. It is the old belief in the rod. The more used on the child the finer will it be when grown to manhood or womanhood. We have emancipated ourselves from that stupidity.”
This description of liberalism sounds as ahistorical as it does sloganistic and self-congratulatory. The selected paragraph on what being liberal “means” could exchange any other identity for liberal and still be exactly as accurate and contain exactly as much content:
“Being libertarian is not only a political philosophy–libertarian is how you live your life and interact with neighbors, coworkers, and strangers on the street. It’s not just how you vote on Election Day, but how you vote with your wallet every day. It’s not only what you chant at a rally, but what you laugh at or rock out to on your iPod.”
And how can I take this seriously as an indictment of consumer culture when the one paragraph pulled to represent the book talks about MY iPod? The one I am presumed to own? And how my interaction with that iPod defines me as a liberal?
The iPod reference, plus the advice about offering flex time, contributing to campaigns, and being a ‘conscious shareholder’ all smack of economic privilege.
Really, the author means well, but damn there are a lot of overprivileged assumptions in just this excerpt.
Something about the ‘Remember to translate for volunteers’ item is getting my goat, too, although I can’t articulate why. Maybe it’s the assumption that someone reading it would be in a position to suddenly think, “Oh wait, I forgot I did a year abroad in Barcelona! Damn, never would have remembered that! Good thing I have this book to remind me to translate for the people I’m giving instructions to.”
Also, the book’s website suggests powering a laptop with a solar power-generating backpack.
Why do I feel like I’m back at Wesleyan? And I mean that in the worst possible way. My peers were smart, and certainly progressive, but saying they were blind to their own privilege is quite an understatement.